Ballast coal
Ballast coal is hard coal that contains a high proportion (20% and more) of " ballast ", that is, non-flammable components ( water and ash ).
Ballast coal occurs as " medium good " and as dust and sludge during the processing of coal ( coal washing ). It comes from the transition areas of a seam where the coal has grown strongly with the adjacent mountains ( intermediate means ).
Ballast coal is one of the low-quality coals, it is unsuitable for the production of coke or briquettes . Initially, many mines used this coal in power plants and boiler houses that were directly connected to the mine and were often owned by the mine for energy supply. However , ballast coal also behaves problematically in furnaces because of the tendency to slagging and because of the high level of pollutants (especially sulfur ). A tightening of the environmental protection regulations for combustion systems led from the 1980s to a drastic reduction in the proportion of ballast coal in electrical energy generation; a larger proportion had to be discarded on mining dumps. Today, ballast coal is only burned in power and cement plants with specially suitable firing ( e.g. melting chamber firing ), coal mills and with appropriate flue gas cleaning . Power plants that are able to burn ballast coal with> 25% ballast receive a financial bonus according to the Third Electricity Generation Act.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b The term is also used more rarely for lignite ; Because of the naturally higher ash and, above all, water content, lignite is only considered ballast coal from an ash content (anhydrous) of around 30%.
- ^ Mining Lexicon. (No longer available online.) SteinkohlePortal.de, formerly in the original ; Retrieved September 2, 2012 . ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Glossary - B. Gesamtverband Steinkohle , accessed on September 2, 2012 .
- ↑ Heinz Brauer: Production and product-integrated environmental protection (= manual of environmental protection and environmental protection technology . Volume 2 ). Springer, 1996, ISBN 3-540-58059-X .
- ↑ Kurt Nichler: Dust coal - a high quality energy source . In: Thyssen Schachtbau Group Report . 1998 ( full text [PDF; 7.1 MB ]).
- ↑ Law on the further safeguarding of the use of community coal in the electricity industry . 1990 ( § 3 ).
